One point that I have noticed is missing from this debate about the
compensation/slaughter program offered to farmers in the face of disease
threat is that under the current system there are so few incentives or
opportunities for farmers to do their job in less risky ways. The point has
been made by several that the system of farming as practiced in the UK (and
in the US, and elsewhere) is inhumane, dangerous, and simply a matter of
economic exploitation. That system is a result of the lowest common
denominator setting the standards for production.
A payment program could easily be designed to reward farms for more careful
management of their soils and animals, and would certainly be more rational.
The ostensible reason for farm payments is to preserve an historic lifestyle
as much as to produce food, and so providing incentives to preserve the gene
base diversity and experiments in low intensity farming would serve both as
well as diffusing the risk of disease.
As long as the farm economy is structured around those with the most
careless attitudes there will be no end to the centralization of food
production, and the diversity of farms will increase in direct proportion to
the increase in disease risk.
Jason Jindrich
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